Scam games designed just for in-app purchases

Justin Davis and Brian Altano at IGN made a video play-through of a game that takes in-app purchases to the extreme. Super Monster Bros by Adventure Time Pocket Free Games, written by Mario Casas, is potentially playable without purchasing extras, but the frequency of the purchase requests, their persistence, and their high prices are all aimed at wearing users down until they unwittingly purchase thirty new shots for $1, or a new character for $100.

Unsurprisingly, it’s no longer available in the Apple store, but the developer has a history of creating incredibly similar games, swapping out just a few almost-but-not-quite-like-a-legitimate-game graphics and using a different almost-but-not-quite-like-a-legitimate-game name.

In-app purchases go too far
The (now-removed) iTunes store entry for a game that makes persistent requests for $100 in-app purchases

This takes the antics described in the Move from money to tokens design pattern to their logical extreme – a game that exists solely to make people buy things, without even an attempt at providing a playable route through the levels. The game’s coding is so lazy, I doubt it even qualifies for the Payment instead of achievement pattern.

IGN Via Cult of Mac